Posted on 05/13/2025 9:40:00 AM PDT by Morgana
CV NEWS FEED // A Missouri bill to support struggling parents and protect vulnerable newborns is now awaiting Gov. Mike Kehoe’s signature after passing both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support.
Sponsored by Rep. Jim Murphy, R-Oakville, the legislation would expand the Safe Haven Baby Box program, raise tax credits for maternity homes and diaper banks, and establish a new “Zero-Cost Adoption Fund.”
Murphy described the measure as “a pro-life bill that everybody agrees with,” Call Newspapers reported.
The proposal, officially titled the “Safe Place for Newborns Fund,” passed the House 136-1 and the Senate 31-1. It directs state resources toward expanding access to Safe Haven Baby Boxes, specialized units installed at public safety locations that allow parents to anonymously surrender newborns in crisis situations.
The first baby box in Missouri was installed in August 2023 at Mehlville Fire Protection District’s Engine House No. 2 in St. Louis County. Just six months later, a newborn girl was safely placed inside. Fire Chief Brian Hendricks, who helped lead the effort, recalled discovering the baby after a silent alarm alerted him to her presence.
“There is no reason in the world we live in that babies end up in dumpsters,” he told lawmakers during testimony earlier this year, Call Newspapers reported. “We can do better.”
Thanks to private donations, six baby boxes have been installed in Missouri, with four more in progress. Murphy said interest in the program is growing rapidly, with fire departments and city councils across the state — including in Kansas City — exploring installations.
Still, funding remains a hurdle. Each unit costs about $20,000 because the boxes must conform to strict health and safety practices similar to hospital-level requirements. The current state budget includes $250,000 for the program, with grants of up to $10,000 per box expected to support 25 additional installations.
The Senate expanded the bill to include a 100% tax credit for donations to maternity homes (up from 70%), increased the annual cap from $50,000 to $100,000 per taxpayer, and extended the diaper bank tax credit through 2031. Lawmakers also created a “Zero-Cost Adoption Fund,” prioritizing families adopting from foster care and offering resources to stabilize those placements.
“Any time we can make not only the adoption process smoother and more cost-efficient [but] also put supports in place to ensure that the adoption is successful, that’s an easy yes for me,” said Rep. Melissa Schmidt, R-Eldridge.
In the Senate, Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern, D-Kansas City, shared her own experience as an adoptive mother.
“My son was placed in my arms at 13 days. I can’t imagine what his birth mom was going through during those days, but I am so grateful that after 13 days, she was able to place him in my arms,” she said. “That’s what we want for all birth parents in that situation, to recognize that there is a safe place for their baby.”
AMEN!
💯.
If you are going to set up a dump for babies while alleviating the responsibility of the parents for not using “common sense” and not having the child, then you’re doing nothing more than providing an outlet for approval of the recreation of doing a baby dance without the caring of what harm it is going to accomplish.
Think adoption is easy? The facts say different. On any given day, over 368,000 children are living in the U.S. foster care system. Over 108,000 of these children are eligible for adoption and they will wait, on average, almost three years for an adoptive family. Some will never get adopted and will age out of the program and be left on their own. More than 33,000 youth in U.S. foster care live in institutions, group homes, and other environments, instead of with a family. Of the 53,665 children and youth who were adopted in 2022 57% were adopted by their foster parent(s) and 33% by a relative. 28% were age nine years or older and the average age of adoption is six years old. So time is not on their side and providing an outlet to sexual recreation to create the option of this is immoral besides atrocious.
wy69
Make recommendations.
“Make recommendations.”
Your task is difficult to achieve. It is impossible to make the loving of a human a requirement for conception. So the answer, I think, is in making it the responsibility of the couple for doing it. And that can’t be accomplished if the parents don’t care enough about the child and just their own selfishness. So you make them care about the result. You have to find a way to instill responsibility in people but giving them an outlet to escape from themselves is not the answer. It just replaces the need for a condom which is one of the provided ways to not bring a child into the world that will go through life as a mistake.
We have to do better. What they are proposing is nothing more than child abandonment. Most states have laws specifically addressing child abandonment, often as part of broader child abuse or neglect statutes. Penalties for child abandonment can range from felonies to misdemeanor charges depending on the severity of the case and the state’s laws. So the thing this thread is discussing has already been determine unlawful. And if I could find a way to stop criminals from doing crimes, I’d be rich and famous. I can only make them responsible for their actions by making it that unpleasant to do them. If they throw a child away, it should be treated as a capital offence. Our society has lost its morals. To bad the wrong people have to pay the price.
wy69
If a parent wants to place a child for adoption, it is usually better for the child to be placed for adoption.
I agree with everything that you wrote, however, women are routinely leaving babies to die in bathrooms and trash cans.
Saving babies’ lives in the near term as well as the longterm is at the top of the hierarchy of priorities.
Pro-lifers need to do much more to make America a much more family-centric society.
Often, objections to supporting families prevail to the detriment of babies, because the idea of the government providing material benefits is disliked more than the idea of saving babies’ lives is liked.
“Saving babies’ lives in the near term as well as the longterm is at the top of the hierarchy of priorities.”
But making the effort to assist the people who do this is not the answer either by providing them a way to do a “my bad” and then walk. We need to stop the action that creates the problem, not try to repair the result.
There needs to be some type of effort made to come up with a way to make the irresponsible disregard for life so bad it, at least, cuts down on those that ignore what it causes. And if they don’t care, hurt them. I’ve seen the results of the system and it is sickening what happens and how much hurt it provides to the child they don’t care happened.
wy69
People on the pro-life side need to stop characterizing women who kill their daughters and sons - before birth and after birth - as victims.
“People on the pro-life side need to stop characterizing women who kill their daughters and sons - before birth and after birth - as victims.”
I don’t know what else to call it. When you are taken advantage of by someone and you have no control over it, it is the correct definition. The child in this case has no say in the action taken against it. Whether it be conception, abortion or given away. And everything is in the hands of the person that is taking an action.
If a stranger walks into the house and kills the child, that’s murder. If parent aborts a child, that’s legal. If a parent does something stupid and gets or helps get a woman pregnant without the responsibility of caring for it, and pushes the child into an artificial life, then since the child didn’t have a say, it is a victim. And creating outlets to do this allowing it to be used as birth control for people creates a path to creating a victim.
wy69
The baby who is murdered via abortion is a victim.
The woman who murders the baby via abortion is not a victim.
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